Medical Professionalism in the New Information Age.

• Position: Brief article - Book review

Rothman, David J. & David Blumenthal, eds. Medical Professionalism in the New Information Age. Piscataway, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2010; http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu.

With computerized health care information receiving unprecedented governmental support, a group of health policy scholars analyze the legal, social, and professional implications of the new technology. This book explores how Health Information Technology (HIT) may alter relationships between physicians and patients, physicians and other health care providers, and physicians and their home institutions. Patient use of web-based information may undermine physicians' traditional information monopoly and as case studies on kidney transplants and maternity practices reveal, patient uses of HIT may have unanticipated effects, both...